


Memories Have Knives

by orphan_account



Category: Dead Rising, Game Grumps
Genre: Gen, grump rising, legend of grump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 18:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7450156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan runs into his old friend, Holly. But it isn't what he expects....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories Have Knives

**Author's Note:**

> So if any of you don't know, @legendofgrump on tumblr has a dead rising grump au, in which Dan IS the cure for the zombies so none of them touch him, and I wrote this based on that au. Check it out because im too lazy to explain it all. Also follow me @i-am-avacado for other works I haven't posted on here. Shameless plug.

"You are such a good singer Dan, oh my gosh!" Katey claps her glove-covered hands like a seal, and Danny's cheeks flush a little at her praise. 

"Not really, I'm just the only one around here who does it anymore." Dan waves a dismissive hand at the little girl, who jumps from the bench and grabs onto Danny's leg.

"Don't say that! My dad sings all the time! And he sucks!"

Dan laughs, crouching down to Katey's level and prying her off his leg. "Okay, that was pretty funny. But, hey, don't say that about your dad. He loves you, and he knows you like to hear music." He ruffles her hair. "You just gotta appreciate the little things, yeah?"

Katey looks down at the floor. "I'm sorry."

Dan looks sympathetic, bringing her chin up with his hand. "It's okay. Just don't say that when he's around. Okay?"

Katey smiles at Dan. Nods. "Okay."

"Cool. High five." Dan puts his hand up for Katey to high five it, but just before she does, he stands up and holds his hand over his head. With Dan topping 6 feet, there's no way Katey can reach it. She tries anyway, jumping as high as she can, saying, "Hey! No fair!"

"Come on K, don't leave me hanging!" Dan says teasingly.

The door to the little room he and Katey are in opens, interrupting their fun. It's Arin, looking forlorn.

"Hey Katey," He says, smiling at her. But it isn't a real smile, his eyes aren't crinkling like they should. Dan notices how tired he looks. Purple bags are under his eyes and he looks pale, like he hasn't eaten in a while. 

"Hi Arin," Katey replies, hiding a little behind Dan's legs. She isn't afraid of him, that's for sure, but she just hasn't really taken a liking to anyone but her own father and Dan. Arin doesn't mind.

"Hey Dan, uh, can we talk for a second?" Arin asks. Dan nods, kneeling down quick enough to plant a kiss on Katey's head before walking out with Arin.

"I'll be right back," He says to her before the door shuts behind him.  
***  
"Wow." Dan stares at the camera screen, looking at the hoard of zombies that has gathered around the entrance of the grocery store. They shuffle around in a huge mass, almost uniform-like. A sway to the right, a sway to the left, all at once. The screen is on mute, but Dan can almost hear the groans and growls coming from them. He wants to shudder.

"Yeah," Arin says. He points to the sign on the building. "So, that's the store."

"I know that."

"Which means they're blocking it. Which means no one can really get to it. Which means we won't have any food soon. So...uh..." Arin looks at Dan, waiting for it to click. It does. Dan sighs, annoyed.

"So you want me to go get rid of them."

"I don't, but...everyone else does. Since you came, they've all gotten lazy as fuck. I'm sorry."

Dan forces a smile, turning around and grabbing the hatchet off the wall. "It's fine. They won't touch me anyway."

Dan turns to go out and take care of business, but he can feel his arm being grabbed. He turns and sees Arin there, holding out his camera. 

"Get a good picture for me?" He asks, a hint of pleading for the old times in his voice. Dan smiles, nods, takes the camera, and hangs it around his neck.

"You got it."  
***  
Wow. Okay, there's more zombies here than Dan thought there were. 

He quietly steps through the crowd of zombies, making his way to the front so he can work his way down from the top. Some of the undead look at him, graze him, even sniff him, but none actually touch him or go for him. They even kind of step aside to let him through. 

Once Dan is at the front doors of the grocery store, he takes one last look at the crowd. He raises the camera up and snaps a picture for Arin, unsure whether it's good enough or not because well fuck he isn't a photographer, and then poises the hatchet above his head. 

He completely blows through the zombies, slicing heads there and cutting torsos here. Dan doesn't even look at what he's cutting, he just knows he's cutting. And while he slices, he tries not to remember how each of these zombies used to be an actual person with actual consciousness and families and dreams and...and...

Don't think about it.  
***  
Danny stands, breathless, in an almost sea of body parts. He is covered in the sticky, thick, black blood of them. They all lay motionless beneath his feet.

He looks up at where he believes the security camera to be, and waves. Hopefully Katey isn't watching.

"Okay," Dan says to himself, exasperated. "Time to go."

He pauses for a second, trying to figure out where to put his feet to get back without slipping on all the blood. And in that few seconds, he kind of forgets to keep his hand clenched shut, and the hatchet clatters to the ground.

"Shit." Dan reaches down to grab it, cringing because it dropped right next to a head. His fingers are just around the handle of the hatchet, when he spots it.

A wisp of pink hair. A passing glimpse of a blue eye. And suddenly, Dan can't look away. Because he recognizes this face. This person, he knows who it is.

Who she is. 

Before Dan realizes what he's doing, the camera is raised and he's snapping a picture. Arin won't believe him otherwise. Dan barely believes it himself.

But it's her. Even through the blood and the guck and everything. He can see her. 

"Oh my god." Dan can feel the bile rising in his stomach, and before he can stop himself, he's puking everywhere. All of Dan's breakfast and lunch ends up on the floor and he can feel himself start to cry.

Now he really hopes Katey isn't watching.  
***  
Dan bursts through the door of the office, stumbling like one of the zombies as he runs to the bathroom.  
"Dan! What happened!?" Arin is calling after him as Dan goes. He must've seen on the screen. But Dan ignores him. He runs to the bathroom by muscle memory because all he can see in front of him is her head, decrepit and rotten, mouth stuck in a grimace. 

"Leave m-me alone!" Dan screams. And that's all he can get out before he kneels in front of the toilet. 

"Danny?" Katey calls. Dan's heart falls to his stomach. He can't let her see him like this. 

"Arin, take her somew-where!" Dan yells. He slams the stall door shut and locks it just to make sure, and then he is dry heaving into the toilet bowl.

Oh my god. How did she end up here at the mall? Did she get bitten and then she just dumbly stumbled around until she got here? Why...why did she have to be there? Why did she have to fall under Dan's blade?

"F-fu-huck." Dan can't stop himself from gagging into the toilet bowl. There is nothing left in his stomach, but he can't stop. He can't get rid of the image of her head just...laying there. And he had cut it off her body. He had killed her for good.

Holly. His friend. His old friend had never made it after all.   
***  
"I'm leaving." Dan looked up from the book he was reading, and saw Holly standing with her hand on the door knob. "Give me the key to the door so I can leave."

Dan stood, leaving the book open on the couch, and walked over to her. She had a full backpack on her shoulders, and her face was determined. 

"What's wrong? Why?" He asked. Holly stared at the floor.

"I'm just...ready to go," She said. "You said I never had an obligation to stay here. And..and I wanna go."

Dan stuck his hand in his pocket, his hand folding around the key. True, he had said that, but it never meant he'd be okay with anyone leaving the safety of the house. Once you're out there, you're out there at the mercy of the undead. 

But he had told her that on the day they met. Leave whenever you want. Whenever you're ready. Dan can't stop her now.

"Just one thing," Dan said. He took the key out of his pocket and dropped it in Holly's open palm. "Promise me you'll get somewhere safe."

Holly smiled, kinda sadly. "I can't promise that Dan. But, hell, I'll try."

Dan nodded. "That's all I can ask for." He opened his arms to her. "Hug?"

"Sure." Holly let Dan hug her and she wrapped her arms around him too. They stood there for a minute or so in their embrace. Then, Holly unlocked the door with Dan's key, gave it back to him, and she stepped out into the world without looking back.  
***  
Dan sits there for what feels like forever, even though he's stopped heaving into the bowl. But he stays there just in case. Partly because he doesn't want to puke on the floor, and partly because he really doesn't want anyone to see him like this. 

But he hears the bathroom door creak open anyway, and Dan immediately knows who it is. The soft footfalls are something he has learned to recognize by heart.

"Dan?" Arin calls gently. "Are you...okay?"

Dan snorts, that's the farthest thing from what he is right now. But he pushes himself up off the ground, and walks out of the stall. Arin is standing in the doorway, worry in his eyes. Katey is right behind him, clutching Arin's leg. 

Dan swallows, not wanting to let her hear any of this. She may be growing up in this shit hole, but she can live without hearing about what the shit is made of. Dan forces a laugh. "I just..uh, got sick and freaked out a little. I think I caught something." He pauses. "Hey, uh...Arin, can I...talk to you for a second?"

Arin's eyes flicker down to Katey, and he knows what Dan means. "Okay," He says. "Hey Katey, why don't you go with your dad? Danny cleared out the store, so you can get some candy there."

Katey nods and her crooked teeth show through her smile. "Okay Arin." She scurries away. 

Arin shuts the bathroom door when she goes, and he leans against it just for good measure. "So," he says. "What's the matter?"

Dan looks at the floor, trying to figure out what to say, how to say it. He takes a big breath, still not being able to get rid of the image of Holly's rotten, eviscerated face right in front of him, moments after he had chopped it off her body.

Was she still wearing that backpack on her shoulders?

"I've...uh...told you about Holly, right?" Dan looks up at Arin. His voice cracks when he says her name.  
Arin nods. "Yeah."

Tears well up in Dan's eyes. "I...when I was clearing out the store...I had...um.." He takes another shaky breath. "I fucking cut her head off dude. She was...she had been turned and I..." His voice catches. "I chopped her f-fucking head off when I was clearing out the store. And I dropped my hatchet and I saw...her head when I picked it up. I didn't..." 

Suddenly, Dan can't keep it together anymore. He breaks down in sobs, falling into Arin like kid who had been awaken because of a nightmare. Arin makes no objection. Instead, he wraps his arms around Dan just like he would his own son if he had one. He holds Dan while he cries, letting him get it all out. He may not have known Holly personally, but he knows how much Dan loved her.

"Before I met her, it's like I was drowning," he had told Arin one night. "And then she was made of air." They had both been drunk that night, and Arin figured that Dan didn't really know what he was saying. Now though, as Dan weeps against his chest, Arin can see that he wasn't kidding. He wasn't just letting the alcohol talk. He meant it. And he can't imagine how much Dan is hurting right now.

"I'm so sorry Dan," Arin says quietly. What else can he say? "Are...are you sure it was her? Maybe it was--"

Dan pushes off of Arin in an angry jerk. "I knew you wouldn't believe me," He says in a nasally voice. He takes the camera off his neck and clicks through it for a few seconds before turning the screen so Arin can see it, almost shoving it in his face.

It's a picture of a zombie head. The head has pink hair that is only connected to the skull in clumps, barely attached. The eyes are a magnificent blue, not like the glazed over white that the others have. That means they had just been turned, probably bitten not even a day ago. It's obviously a woman's head, high cheekbones and rounded face. The skin is gray and decaying, but if Arin focuses, he could see her beauty.

Arin swallows, nervously taking the camera in his hands. 

"That's her," Dan says, poking the screen. "That's exactly how I described her. That's...her. That's Holly. Don't t-tell me that isn't h...her man." He stops talking before he starts crying again.

Arin frowns at the picture, turning the camera off. He looks up at Dan, who has a hand clasped in his head of brown curls. He tugs at it, obviously in thought.

Then, he suddenly laughs. Arin cocks his head to the side. "Dan?" He asks. Has Dan gone off his rocker?

Dan wipes the tears out of his eyes before they fall down his cheeks as he laughs. "You know fucking what Arin?" He asks. "I could've stopped her. I could've kept her in the house. I shouldn't have let her go. I shouldn't-" Dan pauses, starting to pace up and down the bathroom. He grits his teeth, letting out another laugh that sounds more like hiss. He slaps the wall. "I could've fucking saved her! And she wouldn't have turned and I wouldn't have--" Dan stops, not wanting to say it.

Arin takes a cautious step towards his friend. "Dan, you couldn't have known--"

"That's it though!" Dan yells. He's walking up and down the bathroom frantically now. Dan doesn't know what, but something in him has messed up. He's snapped. Is this what it's like to go crazy? Because Dan knows he's scaring Arin but he can't stop himself from screaming. "I DID know! I did fucking know Arin, SHE'S the one who didn't know! I knew! And I should've fucking told her what she was getting herself into!"

Arin chooses his next words carefully. "Dan, I think you need to lay down. You're going to have a heart attack."

Dan laughs again. "I don't care! I don't. Care. Ask me what I care about, Arin. Fucking ask me! I cut the head of the girl I loved more than ANYTHING! Thats what I care about! She promised me she'd try to get somewhere safe. I should've fucking gone with her or something. I--"

"Dan, you didn't know what was gonna happen to her." Arin wishes with all he has that Katey can't hear this. But he knows everyone can because these walls are paper thin.

"I DID Arin!" Dan yells. He leans back against the wall, thumping his head against it in beat with his words. "I. Fucking. Did. She. Didn't." He reaches up and wipes fresh tears off his face. "She didn't. She didn't and I could've told her and then she wouldn't have gone and I wouldn't have had to have missed her and had false hope and I wouldn't have cut her fucking head off!"

Arin's heart burns for Dan right now. How he just wants to hug Dan, pull him in, grab him tight. But he's honestly afraid of what's happening right now. Right now, Arin's contemplating going to get someone.

Dan slides down the wall. His knees fold in front of him like a lawn chair, and he wraps his arms around them, resting the side of his head on the top of them. 

Dan is quiet now, thankfully out of steam. He just sits there, silently letting the tears fall.

"Do you...want me to get someone Dan?" Arin asks. Dan doesn't answer him, he just stares ahead at nothing. 

But before he can go get anyone, he hears the bathroom door open. He turns, and sees Katey standing there, with an expression that means she heard every word. 

"Danny?" She asks slowly. Danny's head jerks up and looks at her, fear showing very clearly in his eyes.

"Katey, what are you doing in here?" He asks. 

Katey doesn't answer him. Instead, she runs over to him and hugs him tight. 

"I'm sorry Danny. I'm sorry. It'll be okay Danny," She says. Danny stares down at her. She's buried in his chest, eyes closed, glove-covered hands gripping his legs. She has no idea why he was screaming or why he's crying or why he looks so sad, but all she knows is that when she's sad, Danny hugs her and tells her it'll be okay. So that's what she does to him.

Dan pets her head, a ghost of a smile showing on his face. "Thank you, Katey. Thank you."


End file.
